It’s not on the next coach, it’s on ND to find him

Mike Burke

Having pulled the trigger on Little Big Fat Parcells — a.k.a. Charlie Weis — Notre Dame is again on the prowl for a new head football coach for the fifth time in 13 years (don’t forget George O’Leary) after having had to conduct the same search just four times in the previous 45 years.

So the question begs, Can Notre Dame ever be Notre Dame again?

In the immortal words of Frank Burns, “Absotively.”

There is no question in my mind Notre Dame can and will be Notre Dame again if the Notre Dame adminstration finally comes through and doesn’t drop the ball for the sixth time (that includes firing Tyrone Willingham, not hiring him) since 1981 when they brought, God love him, poor Gerry Faust into be skewered.

Don’t forget, before the Irish hired Lou Holtz to succeed Faust, the same doubts about Notre Dame being able to be Notre Dame again were all over the place. We just didn’t have access to it 24/7 the way we do now. For that matter, the same questions and doubts persisted through the late 1950s and early ’60s until Ara Parseghian arrived.

Notre Dame, though, became Notre Dame again on both occasions, and it will again, because Notre Dame is a special place, and special things, most of which have nothing to do with sports, happen there. Notre Dame is a magic place because life there is based on and fueled by faith.

How will that matter when it comes to putting a winning football program on the field? Look, I haven’t rooted for Notre Dame since 1996, and I haven’t been to Notre Dame since 1989, but I have been there, and I know it will matter, because it has so many times before.

Scoff if you will, but if Notre Dame can finally hook up “right man” with “special place,” Notre Dame will be Notre Dame again.

Life of Brian

Perhaps the most interesting — and to me, hilarious — name to surface as a possible candidate for the Notre Dame job is that of former Ravens coach Brian Billick. I mean, how funny would that press conference be, not to mention the many more that would follow, if Notre Dame completely lost its marbles and hired Billick?

Well, don’t expect it to happen. No way is the Notre Dame administration ever going to allow “The Word of Life” mural located on Hesburgh Library to be referred to as “Touchdown Brian.”

Is this dubbed?

I could let this pass if they’d ever stop running the commercials on TV and radio, which, of course, they’re not going to do; but the entire tenor of those Troy Polamalu shampoo commercials is just very unsettling to me. Not because the Steelers safety is pushing shampoo, not because I believe he makes a fool of himself (and if I believed that, I certainly wouldn’t put it in writing beneath a picture of my yet-to-be-fractured face), not because I begrudge his being paid a lot of bucks for making a commercial. It’s just each time I see or hear those ads I still hear something I’m not expecting to hear.

It’s like when Grossberger sings in “Stir Crazy.” The sound doesn’t fit the picture, and you find yourself stopping whatever it is you’re doing to say, “ ... What?”

Life’s full of tradeoffs

What’s left to be said about Tiger Woods and his alleged peccadilloes that hasn’t already been said? Actually, more than likely a whole lot.

We talked on Sunday about this thing taking on directionless legs, and while those legs have been running in many different directions, they all come to a stop at the same place and at the feet of the same person, Tiger Woods. So why shouldn’t this all be news, and big news at that? Tiger has made some big, big money by controlling and cultivating his image through the media and through his sponsors all of these years, hasn’t he?

I would like to clarify my intent was not to target the media on Sunday when I said it was only just the beginning as far as having this story shoved down our throats. I don’t blame the media; I don’t even blame the John Waynes of Cyberspace. I blame Tiger Woods for ever letting this happen. No, I never thought of him as being perfect, but I did always think of him as being responsible.

If we were going to blame the media for anything here, it would be for raising our expectations too high to begin with. But you know what? We bought it. We were the buyers hook, line and sinker.

Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.